If I Ran Comcast

Forget the economy crisis. Hurricane Kyle? Big deal. Let's deal with the important stuff, people. I'm without internet.

No, it's not because I didn't pay my bills. Unlike the Chachi's on Wall Street, I'm fiscally responsible. In fact, I'm not completely sure I even know why I am without internet. Well, yeah I do...it's because Comcast sucks.

Communistcast, the second largest cable operator in the United States is based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And they suck. Big, huge donkey dong. Boy, do they suck. Sucka sucka suck.

It is because these weasels operate a network of fishing wire and soup cans throughout the United States that I find myself holed up in a Panera watching Larry's cousin Balki peer over my should at my laptop screen (perhaps he is hoping I am checking out some Jenna Jameson.) And, after an overture of angry ugly baby crying and an interlude of Panera coworker on cell phone with her baby daddy I have decided to bring back this blog. Feel my pain, people.

Some of my friends work for Comcast. Hopefully, they won't get ticked at me for ranting the way my buddy from AOL did when I told them where to stick it. You see, I don't wish that the company go out of business. No, not at all. In fact, I want to help them. Comcast....help me help you. I've got the answers.

If I ran Comcast, the first thing I would do is scream. I mean, seriously...taming this beast would be no easy task. After putting a therapist on staff and hiding the razor blades, I'd get to work...

Reduce the mailings. Most customers hate Comcast and are only subscribers because they have to be. It's bad enough they are being forced to use Comcast cable service....why in the world would they want to put their phone service in the incompetent hands of Comcast? I honestly get a mailing from Comcast once a week...trying to persuade me to sign up for their Triple Play or whatever they call it. I am sure the return on investment for this is minimal. Stop it, stop it now. Often I have thought of pulling a Cosmo Kramer and collecting all of these postcards from the neighborhood and dropping them off on Comcast's doorstep.

Change service call schedules. News flash! Most home consumers work during the day. Do what you need to do, but make more service technicians available at night. Customers who need to work three jobs to pay for the outrageous, monopolistic rates do not have the flexibility to take a day off of work or school and wait around between noon and never o'clock for someone to show up. Reduce the technicians working during the day and bulk up on nights and weekends. And if you fix the infrastructure, you'd reduce the need for service calls in the first place. And while you're at it, stop sending two and three people teams. I can't imagine how many of the service calls actually require a militia to solve the service interruption.

Stop contracting service technicians. You lose quality control and good customer service when you contract the work out. These knuckleheads drive around in questionable vehicles with Comcast magnets slapped on the side. They traipse mud through and sometimes smell like a discarded cigarette butt in the bottom of a urinal. Twice in my years as a Comcast customer they have accidentally disconnected someone else in my building's cable. Watching them stumble through an installation is painful; my two-year old nephew knows more about the Comcast box than these bumbletards. Keeping the technicians on your payroll will, in the long run, save money. The incompetence leads to rework, which raises your costs.

Get out of the programming business. Why, when you can't maintain your core business-providing cable, do you dabble in programming? Of course, I know the answer to that....$$$$$. Duh. You hold us hostage to your crappy channels, while moving more popular channels off to the more pricey premium packages. Let's run through the stellar list of cable channels that Comcast is a majority owner of. Brace yourself, this is some awesome stuff. E!, Style Network, G4, The Golf Channel, CN8 and Versus (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network, and still known as a channel no one with a heartbeat watches network.) Seriously, it is a sad state of affairs when E! is your marquee network.

Stop being retarded. Focus on your customers and your core business. It's really that simple. Go out of your way to provide an exceptional and reliable product, and make your customers happy. Sell off of your side businesses, naming rights and other frivolous crap and make the cable service off the hook. Poor choice of words, sorry. In 2008, your customers need to be able stay connected, for work, for school, for porn.

AOL used to be successful. Heck, they were one of the pioneers of the internet business. They got too big, too fast, sucked, wasted tons of money with marketing ploys (remember those cds of 1,000,000 free hours?), pissed off their customers BIG TIME, made poor business decisions, and are pretty much hanging on by a thread. In this economy, it wouldn't surprise me if they were completely gone by this time next year. Who would have thought? A titan like AOL? Take care of your customers, Comcast, and they will take care of you. Stop being retarded.

BECOMING SYBIL

Do you ever find yourself shuffling through different personalities...different versions of yourself...on a daily basis? I do.

Work. You've got your group of 'friends.' You've got your status and your image and all of that crap. If you work in a professional, corporate environment...you've got a whole list of standards and guidelines and bloppity blah blah crap like that. You have to be careful what you say and who you say it to. Don't be too political...don't speak your mind too much...be PC....ugh... it is too much sometimes. Depending on your position, you may find yourself in a mind boggling labyrinth of constraint.

Family. A completely different world. They've known you for-evah! They can see through your bullshit. They know what's up. You have a different image, a different role, a different place on the totem pole of life. You may rule the roost at work, but do you at home? Or vice versa?

Friends. This can be the wackiest group of all. Because within your group of friends, you most likely have subsets. There are the friends you've known since grade school, high school, college, past jobs, etc. Within those groups there are different groups. The professional types, the slacker types. The mathy math math types and the artsy types. The rebels and the law-abiding folk. There are those you see all the time, and those that go on hiatus...only to return years later as if no time had passed. Your place or your status in each of the groups could be drastically different. You could be the top dog in one group and perhaps a tag along in another.

Am I making any sense here? It's confusing. It's annoying. Why can't we just be who we are all the time? Why do we constantly feel the need to be jockeying for different positions throughout the day? Why do we put up with these "rules" and "guidelines" and "taboos?"

I go nuts trying to remember who I can say what to and when and where I can say it. As long as my intent isn't to offend or hurt someone, then what is the big deal? And why should I have to feel obligated to hide my opinions on religion, politics, social and whatever issues? It's all a big drag if you ask me.

Sometimes I don't even know who I am myself. I'll go see friends perform in a band and think "yeah-I loved it when I was performing....I want to go back to that."

A week later, I'll find myself watching a friend perform on stage and think "yeah....I loved working in the theater. I think I want to go back to that."

A month later, it'll be something else. I really loved working at the newspaper...working the ass off trying to make a deadline. Stretching into the nether regions of my vocab to formulate a headline that would make sense AND fit into an itsy bitsy teeny weeny space. I loved working in radio...covering elections, tornadoes, dead bodies in drainage ditches. Etcetera, etcetera. Good times.

Tonight, I found myself in one of my moments. I went to see Phil Ponce, a Chicago journalist I admire, speak at Loyola. He was moderating a panel of his sons, also in the Chicago news media, about careers in journalism and broadcasting. Afterwards, I chatted up Dan Ponce, who seemed to have gone through a similar experience. Like me, he went to school for broadcasting...only to graduate and then become a music teacher. Random, yes. But comforting to know someone else had gone through the same career uncertainty. After doing his music thing, he realized that he wanted to go back to school to continue on in journalism.

He had an obvious, but great piece of advice. Just go do it. Do what you want to do. Don't be afraid of trying something else. If you feel passionate about something, go do it. Don't go nuts trying to lock into a career path. It's never too late to change your mind.

Duh. Makes sense. But in a mixed-up world of different roles, expectations, standards, rules, and crap...it gets confusing. Nauseating at times. It becomes easy to lose focus. It becomes easy to settle.

Do what you love. If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

Now, where can I get more info on becoming a stripper? Kidding.

XANADU ON BROADWAY. SERIOUSLY.

That's the ad slogan they are using, and I think it's terrific. Definitely fagalicious.

Who wants to come see this with me? Seriously.






And check out this hot mess. Who knew Julia Roberts loved Britney Spears so much? Actually, it's a dude. Or is it Hilary Swank? Her doppleganger? Oh, who cares...watch the clip:

CTA

Can't Travel Anymore
















*** UPDATE:

The CTA's top officials this afternoon accepted a $24 million funding advance proposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to avert fare increases and service cuts set to take effect Sunday and Monday, but the agency's doomsday scenario will still take place in November unless new funds are obtained.CTA Board Chairman Carole Brown announced the short-term solution after meeting in Blagojevich's Chicago office to discuss funding proposals. Before taking effect, the move needs to be green-lighted by the RTA in a meeting scheduled for Friday.Brown said the plan will "give the legislature more time to craft a long-term funding solution for the region."

=(

iTunes should really do a commercial spotlighting one of their best features: the iMix. It's Napster meets mixtapes.

Anywho, I stumbled across this iMix that is accompanied by the following text:

please

you mean everything to me and i can't imagine being without you

we can make it through this

we have to.

Awww that's why it's a =(

Some of the highlights:
Pillows & Records-Aidan Hawken
Outside-Aqualung
Hotel Roosevelt-Augustana
Sparks-Coldplay
We Belong-The Colorful Quiet
Brothers on a Hotel Bed-Death Cab for Cutie
This Never Happened Before-Paul McCartney
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want-The Smiths
Closer-Travis